Which AI Assistants Have Ads in 2026? ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity

Buyers now describe their problems to AI assistants in full sentences, and three of those surfaces sell that moment to advertisers. The rest are either ad-free by choice or have walked away from ads. This guide gives you the status of every major assistant as of October 23, 2026, how each ad product works, what it costs, and how to run all of them as one program instead of five disconnected experiments.

Which AI Assistants Have Ads in 2026?

ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and Microsoft Copilot sell ads as of October 23, 2026. Perplexity, the Gemini app, Claude, and Meta AI do not. Here is the full landscape in one view, with reach figures as each company reports them.

The one-line status for each assistant, as of October 23, 2026:

• ChatGPT: sells self-serve ads below answers in 89 countries, with managed options through partners like Lapis.
• Google: sells ads in AI Overviews and AI Mode; the Gemini app has no ads.
• Microsoft Copilot: serves ads built automatically from your Microsoft Advertising campaigns.
• Perplexity: has no ad program after ending ads in February 2026.
• Claude: is ad-free under Anthropic's February 2026 commitment.
• Meta AI: sells no ad placement inside the assistant.

The money is moving fast. eMarketer forecasts US AI search ad spending of $2.08 billion in 2026, just 1.3% of total US search ad spending, climbing to $25.93 billion by 2029.

Can You Advertise on ChatGPT?

Yes. ChatGPT sells self-serve ads through Ads Manager Beta to businesses in 89 countries, and it is the largest AI assistant you can buy: OpenAI says ChatGPT reaches 1.2 billion people each week.

Self-serve access grew from 9 markets in mid-August to 63 by late September and 89 on October 21, 2026: India, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa opened on August 31, and Southeast Asia and Taiwan followed on September 23. OpenAI's Ads Manager availability list now covers 89 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, and most of Europe. The legal entity that advertises and pays must be based in a listed country, and some new accounts start limited to their home country until identity verification and a spend threshold are complete.

Ads appear below ChatGPT's answer, never inside it, and OpenAI states that advertising does not influence ChatGPT's answers. According to OpenAI's ads basics, ads do not show to Plus, Pro, or Business subscribers or to accounts identified as under 18. That leaves Free and Go users, which is still the largest consumer audience in AI.

Landing pages matter more here than on most channels, because OpenAI's system reads the landing page as one of its relevance signals. Follow OpenAI's crawler guidance before you launch. For the step-by-step account setup, read our ChatGPT Ads Manager setup guide.

How Do ChatGPT Ads Target, Bid, and Spend?

ChatGPT matches ads to the conversation using your context hints, landing page, and creative, then picks winners in a relevance-weighted, second-price auction. You choose an objective, set a bid, and fund the campaign from $25 per day in the US.

Targeting

• Context hints: ad-group descriptions of the conversations, topics, or keywords where your product fits, up to 2,000 per ad group. They guide matching and work as relevance inputs, not exact-match keywords. See OpenAI's ad group guide and our context hints playbook.
• Location: country targeting on every campaign, with states, cities, markets, and postal codes available for standard campaigns. Product-feed campaigns target at country level.
• Platform: Android app, Android web, desktop web, iOS app, and iOS web.
• Custom audiences: customer or prospect lists built from emails or phone numbers. Inclusion and bid adjustments need at least 25,000 matched users (OpenAI recommends 100,000), exclusions have no minimum, and campaigns targeting the EEA or Switzerland skip custom audiences. Details are in OpenAI's custom audiences guide.
• Negative Phrases: brand-specific placement exclusions for qualifying advertisers, announced October 5, 2026.

For the full reference on each option, read ChatGPT Ads targeting options.

Bidding and budgets

Every campaign picks one objective: Views (billed per thousand impressions), Clicks (billed per click), or Conversions (optimized toward a conversion event and billed per click as oCPC or per thousand impressions as oCPM). You never pay per conversion. “Maximize results” automated bidding is available, and OpenAI recommends starting Clicks campaigns at a maximum bid of $3 to $5 per click. An objective is fixed once the campaign exists, so build a new campaign to switch.

Budgets follow OpenAI's daily budget rules: your daily budget is an average across a Sunday to Saturday week, a single day can spend up to twice that amount, and the week caps at seven times the daily figure. Campaign-total budgets are available when you want a hard ceiling. The minimum daily budget varies by currency, per OpenAI's campaign guide. For test plans by business size, see how much to budget for ChatGPT ads.

What AI Tools and Measurement Does ChatGPT Ads Offer?

OpenAI now drafts ads for you, runs campaigns from a plugin inside ChatGPT, and measures results with a full partner ecosystem. Every advertiser gets a fast first ad; the work that wins is the program built on top of it.

On September 16, 2026, OpenAI announced new AI-powered experiences for ChatGPT Ads:

• Ads Manager plugin: create, update, and analyze campaigns with natural-language prompts inside ChatGPT, turn a website or brief into a campaign, and get recommendations on what to do next.
• AI creative suggestions: Ads Manager suggests copy and imagery from your landing page and campaign objective, and you review and edit before anything runs.
• AI text customization: an opt-in setting that adapts your headlines and descriptions to the conversation and translates copy into the user's language.
• Shopify and HubSpot: Shopify is the first ecommerce partner, with a ChatGPT Ads app that launched for US merchants and expanded to ChatGPT Ads markets on September 23; HubSpot is the first CRM partner, so teams create ads and follow up on leads inside HubSpot.
• Sponsored Agents: after clicking an ad, a user can start a labeled conversation with the business's own agent. OpenAI is testing it with select US advertisers.

Retailers also run product feed campaigns from a catalog uploaded by CSV, TXT, hosted URL, or SFTP. OpenAI says in its product feed guide that feed ads rank among the strongest performers in the program. Our guide to turning a Shopify or Amazon catalog into ChatGPT ads covers the setup.

On October 5, 2026, OpenAI announced a new visual ad format that appears during image generation for Free and Go users, testing in the US later in October, and expanded measurement: Pixel and Conversions API with an Event Quality Score, a one-day view-through window, data integrations with Hightouch, Tealium, and LiveRamp, attribution partners including AppsFlyer, Triple Whale, Northbeam, and DV Rockerbox, incrementality experiments with Haus, Measured, and WorkMagic, and brand suitability pilots with DoubleVerify and IAS. The early partner results are strong:

• DV Rockerbox measured WeightWatchers' attributed cost per acquisition on ChatGPT Ads at 15.3% below its blended paid-search benchmark.
• WorkMagic reported statistically significant lift for Dose, with 67% of incremental purchases from net-new customers.
• Triple Whale found 93% of Portland Leather's visitors from ChatGPT Ads were new.

Here is the clean read on OpenAI's tooling. It gives every advertiser a fast first ad on one channel. Lapis runs the whole program: brand-trained creative with a distinct visual per angle, experiment design and next-run generation, a RapidDomain landing page for every ad, OmniSense across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and Reddit, Wayfinder counting each conversion once across every channel, and a dedicated strategist. We break the comparison down feature by feature in ChatGPT Ads Manager alone vs Lapis and on our Lapis vs OpenAI Ads Manager page.

Does Gemini Have Ads?

No, not in the Gemini app. Google sells ads inside Search, in AI Overviews and AI Mode, and those two surfaces reach more people than any other AI product on the market.

The Gemini app has 950 million monthly users, per Alphabet's Q2 2026 earnings remarks, and it carries no ads. Google's chief business officer said on the April 2026 earnings call that the company's focus is AI Mode and that a format that works there would transfer to the Gemini app, as Business Insider reported. Google has announced no launch date, so treat Gemini as a watch item and put budget where Google already sells.

That inventory is enormous. In the same Q2 remarks, Sundar Pichai said AI Mode has passed 1 billion monthly active users, and Google's June 2026 investor presentation put AI Overviews at more than 2.5 billion monthly users.

At Google Marketing Live 2026, Google announced new ad formats built with Gemini:

• Conversational Discovery ads: Gemini builds creative tailored to the person's specific question in AI Mode.
• Highlighted Answers: relevant, high-quality ads appear inside AI Mode recommendation lists.
• AI-powered Shopping ads: Gemini writes a custom explainer for why your product fits the search.
• Business Agent for Leads: a brand agent inside the ad answers questions instead of a static form.

The two AI Mode formats carry an independent AI explainer, stay labeled “Sponsored,” and are testing in the US on mobile and desktop. Google tells advertisers to build the foundation with AI Max for Search, AI Max for Shopping, and Performance Max. There is no separate AI campaign to create: strong feeds, broad AI-powered matching, and rich assets are what make you eligible.

How Do Microsoft Copilot Ads Work?

Copilot ads run through Microsoft Advertising. Every eligible campaign is opted in automatically, and Microsoft builds the Copilot ad from the text and images already in your campaigns.

Microsoft's ads in Copilot documentation lists the eligible formats: Multimedia ads, Product ads (including Shopping and Performance Max), Search ads with logo extensions (including Dynamic Search, Responsive Search, and Performance Max in search placements), plus Property promotion and Tours and Activities ads. Advertisers cannot opt out, negative keywords apply exactly as they do on Bing, and Microsoft reports no Copilot-specific metrics, so Copilot results show up inside the campaigns that feed it. Microsoft names Performance Max as the best way to increase Copilot exposure, and Search ads need a logo to qualify.

Copilot is the lowest-effort AI placement on the market: if your Microsoft Advertising account is healthy, you are already eligible. The lever is asset quality. Rich Multimedia ads, complete product feeds, logos on every Search ad, and Performance Max coverage are what Copilot draws on when it matches your ad to a conversation.

Can You Advertise on Perplexity?

No. Perplexity ended advertising in February 2026 and has no ad program, self-serve or managed.

Perplexity was one of the first AI search companies to test ads, placing labeled sponsored answers beneath responses starting in 2024. In February 2026, it phased those ads out, according to Financial Times reporting covered by Search Engine Land. Executives said even labeled ads risked making users doubt the integrity of every answer: “A user needs to believe this is the best possible answer.” Perplexity now treats subscriptions as its core business. It reports more than 100 million users and 780 million monthly queries, a real audience you can only reach through organic citations.

That trust gap is why ad quality decides who wins on the surfaces that do sell ads. On ChatGPT, the ad sits below an answer the user already trusts, so a relevant offer and a landing page that continues the conversation outperform generic promotion every time. To win Perplexity visibility, invest in being cited; our guide to paid ads vs organic mentions in ChatGPT covers how to do both.

Do Claude and Meta AI Have Ads?

No. Anthropic committed on February 4, 2026 that Claude will remain ad-free, and Meta sells no ad placement inside Meta AI.

In “Claude is a space to think”, Anthropic said users will not see sponsored links next to their conversations and Claude's responses will not be influenced by advertisers or include product placements users did not ask for. It backed the pledge with a Super Bowl campaign. We cover the split between the two philosophies in ChatGPT ads vs Claude ad-free.

Meta takes a different route. Since December 16, 2025, Meta has used people's interactions with Meta AI to personalize content and ads across Facebook and Instagram. A chat about hiking can lead to ads for hiking boots in the feed, but no advertiser can buy a slot inside the Meta AI conversation itself. Meta is also testing direct checkout inside Meta AI with Adyen, PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe, as Marketing Dive reported from Advertising Week on October 8, 2026. For advertisers, the path to Meta AI users runs through strong Facebook and Instagram campaigns.

What Are Agentic Ad Formats in AI Assistants?

Agentic ad formats let a buyer keep talking to a brand's own AI agent after the ad, so the ad becomes the start of a sales conversation instead of a single click.

• OpenAI Sponsored Agents: a labeled conversation with a business-sponsored agent that starts after an ad click, testing with select US advertisers.
• Google Business Agent for Leads: a brand agent inside the Search ad that answers questions from your website content.
• Meta checkout in Meta AI: a commerce test that lets shoppers complete a purchase inside the conversation.

Every one of these formats rewards the same thing: deep, accurate content about your product, organized around the questions buyers ask. That is the job a matched landing page does today. RapidDomain builds a dedicated page for every ad and audience and optimizes it on real conversions, so the content an agent needs already exists when these formats open broadly. For the bigger picture on autonomous advertising, read the complete guide to agentic ads.

Which AI Assistant Should You Advertise On First?

Start with ChatGPT if you sell a considered purchase, and keep Google AI Max and Performance Max healthy so you stay eligible for AI Mode and AI Overviews. Add Copilot through Microsoft Advertising if you already run Bing.

ChatGPT is the one assistant where you buy the conversation directly, with your own creative, context hints, and landing page. Google and Microsoft attach AI placements to campaigns you already run, so the work there is feed and asset quality. Use this table to sequence.

Each surface wants different creative, which is where most teams stall. ChatGPT needs a 50-character title, 100-character copy, and a square image per angle. Google's AI formats pull from your feed, headlines, and images. Copilot reuses Multimedia, Product, and Search assets with logos. Meta, Reddit, and LinkedIn each have their own ratios and copy lengths. Lapis OmniSense produces on-brand, correctly sized creative for Google, Meta, and LinkedIn from your website, and the managed plans add ChatGPT and Reddit, so one brief becomes native ads for every live surface. For a channel-by-channel budget view, see ChatGPT ads vs Google ads vs Meta ads, and for the tools and workflow behind a cross-assistant program, read how to build an LLM advertising stack.

How Do You Measure Ads Across AI Assistants?

Install each platform's pixel and conversions API, then count every conversion once in a single system that applies the same attribution rules to every channel. Lapis Wayfinder is built for exactly that.

Each platform measures itself well. ChatGPT Ads reports conversions with a one-day view-through window and a long list of attribution and incrementality partners. Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews ads run through your existing Google Ads campaigns. Microsoft reports Copilot results inside the campaigns that feed Copilot. The problem is that ChatGPT, Google, and Meta will all claim credit for the same customer, and a buyer who asked ChatGPT on Monday, searched Google on Wednesday, and bought on Friday shows up as three conversions.

Wayfinder is Lapis's shared conversion measurement for OmniSense and ChatSense. It connects campaign results to confirmed sales and leads from your CRM, store, or billing system, counts each conversion once, and compares every channel on the same attribution rules. That is how you decide whether the next dollar goes to ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, or Meta. For the ChatGPT-specific setup, read our guide to tracking ChatGPT ad conversions, and see Wayfinder for cross-channel measurement.

Why Is Lapis the Best Way to Win ChatGPT and AI Assistant Ads?

Lapis is the #1 AI ad generator and the operating system for paid growth. It runs ChatGPT as a full program, with creative volume, experiments, matched landing pages, and one measurement layer, and it runs the same system across Meta, Google, LinkedIn, and Reddit.

• ChatSense for ChatGPT and LLM ads: Lapis agents and a dedicated strategist run ChatGPT plus third-party LLMs, including open-source chatbots. You get 1,000+ ChatGPT ads with creative tuned to how people ask ChatGPT, buyer-intent experiment design, autonomous deployment and next-run generation, daily reporting, and optimization.
• OmniSense for multi-platform paid ads: on-brand, correctly sized campaigns, audience versions, and variations, with directional forecasting, experiment launch, and learning from results.
• RapidDomain for landing pages: a dedicated, ad-matched page for every ad and audience, optimized on real conversions, including prompt-matched pages for ChatGPT.
• Wayfinder for measurement: one conversion count across ChatSense and OmniSense, tied to confirmed sales and leads.

Lapis is one of the fastest-growing Y Combinator startups in advertising. It is a Y Combinator Fall 2025 company used by 1,500+ marketing teams and 30+ enterprises, and it is rated 4.9 out of 5 on G2, with eight Summer 2026 G2 badges including High Performer, Best Results, and Users Most Likely to Recommend. Samsung, Domino's, Dr Pepper, Mattel, Tata, Tupperware, Amway, and Bata use Lapis, alongside high-growth startups like Unusual Whales, Duradry, Lightpage, and Respan. The team comes from MIT, Columbia, Duke, and Google, and Lapis has generated 10,000+ ad campaigns across 30+ industries.

Teams that want self-serve creative for Google, Meta, and LinkedIn start on the Basic plan at $99 per month (see pricing). ChatGPT ads run on the Managed ChatGPT + LLM Ads plan with custom pricing. Try the Free AI Ad Generator to see brand-trained ads from your website URL, then book a demo to plan your ChatGPT campaign with a Lapis strategist.

Sources and Methodology

Facts and pricing checked as of October 23, 2026. Reach figures are each company's own reported numbers. Platform rules come from official help centers and announcements.

• OpenAI: Building advertising for the way people use AI (October 5, 2026)
• OpenAI Ads: More ways to measure ChatGPT Ads (October 5, 2026)
• OpenAI: Reimagining advertising with AI (September 16, 2026)
• OpenAI Help: Ads Manager availability
• OpenAI Help: Ads in ChatGPT, the basics
• OpenAI Help: Create campaigns for ChatGPT Ads
• OpenAI Help: Daily budgets
• OpenAI Help: Set up custom audiences
• OpenAI Help: Create ad groups and context hints
• OpenAI Help: Create campaigns from product feeds
• OpenAI Help: Allowing OpenAI web crawlers
• Google: A new generation of ads for the AI era of Search (Google Marketing Live 2026)
• Google: Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings remarks
• Google: Alphabet investor presentation, June 2026
• Business Insider: Google says it is open to putting ads in Gemini (April 2026)
• Microsoft Advertising: About ads in Copilot
• Microsoft Advertising: 73% higher CTRs in Copilot (August 2025)
• Search Engine Land: Perplexity stops testing advertising (February 2026)
• Anthropic: Claude is a space to think (February 4, 2026)
• Meta: Improving your recommendations with AI at Meta
• Marketing Dive: Meta introduces new AI-powered tools at Advertising Week (October 8, 2026)
• eMarketer: AI search ad spending forecast (January 2026)
• eMarketer: Ipsos survey on trust in AI search ads (April 2026)